Friday, December 18, 2015

This is a featured story in the Huffington Post Highline, Dec. 2015, about guards using shotguns in the prisons run by NDOC, and the deadly results this practice brings with it.

AUTHOR: Dana Liebelson, ARTIST: Corey Brickley

Guards inside prisons shouldn't have guns. That's pretty much an accepted fact. Except in Nevada—and the results are mayhem and death.

In the solitary unit at High Desert State Prison in Nevada, the guards usually follow a simple practice: Never let two inmates out of their cells at once, because you never know what might go wrong. The prison is a massive complex less than an hour from Las Vegas, surrounded by electric fences with razor ribbon and then miles of brush and gravel. In “the hole,” as the solitary unit is known, inmates are isolated for around 23 hours a day—sometimes because they’re being punished, sometimes for their own protection. One evening last November, a 38-year-old corrections officer named Jeff Castro was supervising prisoners as they took turns in the shower cage when two inmates were released into the corridor at the same time.

Andrew Arevalo was a heavily tattooed, round-faced 24-year-old who had been convicted of stealing two paint machines. Carlos Perez, who was four years older, was serving time for hitting a man with a two-by-four and was due to get out of prison in March. Even though they both had their hands restrained behind their backs, they started trying to fight. To Steve McNeill, a prisoner who was watching from his cell, it looked pretty funny: two guys in T-shirts and boxer shorts yelling at each other, clumsily kicking at each other's shins and then backing away. “Neither could affect an effective offensive,” McNeill recalled. “It was like some awkward and quirky dance, then 'BOOM.'”

About 30 feet away, another officer was manning the control room—a trainee named John-Raynaldo Ramos. His job was to remotely open the cell doors from “the bubble,” the glass room overlooking the floor. The elevated booth is equipped with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with 7 1/2-birdshot—the same tiny pellets that sport shooters use to blow apart clay pigeons and that hunters use to kill birds and rabbits. The windows of the bubble, which are reinforced with security bars, can be opened to aim a gun through. “Get on the ground,” Ramos ordered the two men.

...

Jackie Crawford, who served as Nevada's director of corrections from 2000 to 2005, also pointed to the state’s historically low staffing levels. She described an instance when inmates were fighting under a gun post at High Desert, but the officer was too close to fire on them. One inmate was seriously injured and subsequently died, she said. However, she added, “You can’t control inmates just with gun towers or other uses of force. There needs to be treatment, training, education and meaningful work programs.” The warden of High Desert when Perez was shot, Dwight Neven, defended the policy emphatically in court in June 2015, testifying that it protects officers. The law, he said, allows “my officers to break up even a small altercation in the dining hall with whatever level of force is necessary.”

Monday, November 23, 2015

Nevada Cure has just published its 14th Informational Bulletin for the months of November and December.You can read an/or download this issue by clicking on this link.Our imprisoned members will receive a printed version of this issue.If you would like to donate to Nevada Cure and help send our Bulletin to members in prison, please send your most welcome donation to: NV-CURE, 540 E. St. Louis Ave, Las Vegas NV 89104Or send your donation via Paypal.THANK YOU!!

Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement he accepted Cox's resignation and appointed E.K. McDaniel to serve as interim director of the department, which has come under scrutiny for use-of-force issues leading to inmate injuries and one prisoner fatality.

"I would like to thank Greg for his service to our state and I appreciate his hard work serving the people of Nevada," Sandoval said.

No reason was given for the Cox's resignation, but John Witherow, head of the NV Cure prison reform organization, has a laundry list of problems with the way the department treats inmates.

"I don't know why he resigned, but I suspect it was his inability to control his subordinates," he said.

NV Cure had met with Cox to discuss retaliation against prisoners who file formal grievances against the department. Witherow said Cox told him he would not tolerate that kind of treatment.

"The retaliation did not, in fact, stop. It increased," Witherow said.

Cox's resignation follows months of high-profile conflicts at Nevada prisons, beginning with a fatal inmate shooting in November at High Desert State Prison, just outside of Las Vegas, that wasn't revealed until four months later when the Review-Journal discovered the Clark County coroner's office had ruled it a homicide.

More recently, seven inmates were injured in August at Warm Springs Correctional Center in Carson City when a fight broke out during dinner and guards opened fire with rubber pellets. One inmate who was not identified was flown to a Reno hospital, though details of his injuries remain undisclosed.

In July, three inmates suffered minor injuries when guards fired rounds to break up a fight at Lovelock Correctional Center. One inmate at Ely State Prison was taken to a hospital in Las Vegas in April after he was shot by a guard during a fight. Eight other inmates were injured.

Cox's resignation came the night before he was expected to present the findings from a study on the department's use of force at Tuesday's Board of State Prison Commissioners in Carson City. The prison board, comprised of the governor, Attorney General Adam Laxalt and Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, requested the study at the last meeting after Perez's death led to controversy.

On Monday, an unnamed spokesman for the department told the Review-Journal "there is no final report as of yet" in the study conducted by the Association of State Correctional Administrators.

"This is so sad. Cox was a real reformer stuck in an underfunded institution which refused to reform," he wrote.

Deputy Director of Operations E.K. McDaniel will serve as the interim director, according to a news release from Sandoval's office.

“I would like to thank Greg for his service to our state and I appreciate his hard work serving the people of Nevada,” Sandoval said in the statement. “As we move forward, E.K. will help provide a smooth transition while we work to find new leadership for the department."

McDaniel began working as a correctional officer in Oklahoma in 1975 and eventually became the deputy warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary before joining NDOC as the warden of Ely State Prison in 1993, according to Sandoval's office.

He worked there until 2011, when he became deputy director of operations, according to the statement."
We are definitely worse off with E.K. McDaniel, and we are glad he is only an interim. Therefore let us hope that a real strong reformer will be appointed who can stand up to EK and his old-boy network likes, who have been the cause of so much pain and suffering inside, so much torture.

Times are changing, with more and more awareness about the many human rights abuses and over-incarceration in prisons around the country, and Nevada has to change too, for the better this time.

Director Cox resigns; E.K. McDaniel appointed interim director. McDaniel is the former warden of Ely State Prison. He is responsible for the death of Patrick Cavanaugh by gangrene because Cavanaugh's diabetic medication was withheld.

McDaniel went to court and made himself conservator over Cavanaugh without the consent of Cavanaugh's family.

McDaniel stood on the tier of Unit 3B at ESP and laughed after Timothy Redman allegedly hung himself after guards emptied seven or eight big cans of pepper spray directly into his cell.

McDaniel testified to the ACAJ that "THERE IS NO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN NEVADA."

In the opinion of NV-CURE, this shows that McDaniel will lie to the legislature, that he can't be trusted with the well-being of prisoners or our tax dollars, and that he must not be appointed to a permanent position as Director.

This is a huge setback to all the hard work NV-CURE has done. Please join NV-CURE and help us STOP McDaniel from receiving a permanent appointment as Director of NDOC.

But in May and June of this year, 12 inmates died. And in the last year, the number who died in Nevada prisons is just under 50.

That compares to an average of 31 deaths per year in Nevada prisons from 2001 to 2012, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Nevada’s prisons aren’t places we hear much about. Media access is severely restricted. Family members don’t always want to talk about a brother or father in prison. And, frankly, many Nevadans don’t care – out of sight, out of mind.

But some states, such as Ohio, are being sued for substandard prison medical care. And it’s no secret that many Nevada inmates die from medical conditions.

Between 2001 and 2012, 80 percent of 379 prison deaths were due to medical problems.

John Witherow knows firsthand how difficult it is to get medical care in Nevada prisons. He spent 26 years in prisons across the state, after being convicted of attempted robbery in Reno. His sentence included a habitual criminal enhancement, which adds years to the sentence of people who have been convicted of another crime.

“Getting medical care within the NDOC is an extremely difficult job,” Witherow told KNPR’s State of Nevada, “The few instances I had with the medical department were terrible.”
---

Forty five people have died in custody in Nevada’s prison facilities since August, 2014. Four committed suicide.

One was shot by a prison guard. One died of cardiovascular disease and the rest are either deaths caused, according to NDOC, by “medical condition”, unknown”, “natural”, or “prolonged illness”. We want to know the causes of death and whether any of these deaths are attributable to the Hepatitis C virus.

This information was provided to NV-CURE by an NPR Senior Producer Joe Schoenmann and former Correctional Officer Mark Clarke, whom we thank for their time and efforts regarding this matter. We hope that further investigation will reveal the facts regarding each of these
deaths.

Not one noted death is from hepatitis C, even though we know that the prevalence of that disease is much higher than in the population at large and we know that NDOC gives very little treatment for this very treatable disease. Allegedly, many of these deaths are “under investigation”, and NV-CURE finally has volunteers willing to keep track of each death, order the coroner’s report, which is a matter of public record, if necessary, and log the deaths on a spreadsheet, making sure that the media, legislators and the US DOJ are made aware of the high number of deaths due to disease. It is estimated that 12-35% of prisoners nationwide are infected with the Hep C virus. We will never know exactly how many prisoners are infected with the disease, until we have testing, which the Nevada legislature and the NDOC refuse to provide.

NDOC claims that they are investigating the potential of providing hospice care, but we have seen no action yet on that claim.

On Tuesday, July 7 at 9 am. NV-CURE President John Witherow will be interviewed on Nevada Public Radio 88.9 FM on this subject. A recording of the program will be posted on our website, Nevaacure.org. Thank you for your attention to this problem.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

TO ALL NV-CURE MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS - AND PRISONER RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS:

Please read Senate Bill (SB) 279 to create an Independent
Ombudsman in the State of Nevada to investigate prisoner complaints.

This is a fantastic bill that will finally
bring justice and fairness to resolution of prisoner complaints and
grievances. Your support for SB 279 is sincerely appreciated.

Please write,
call, or e-mail the Legislature, if you have not already done so, and
express your strong support for passage of SB 279. We commend our
Legislators for sponsoring, drafting and passing and passing SB 279.
Fine job and our most sincere appreciation.

SB 279 is a fine
example of the action that needs to be taken in every state to address
the problems with our prison systems. All prisoner organizations should
bring this bill to the attention of their state and federal
Legislators. Bring justice and fairness to ALL of our citizens.

The case of Russell Yeager isn’t a whodunit or a claim of wrongful conviction.

Yeager is, without a doubt, a murderer.

The mystery lies in what led to Yeager walking out of High Desert State Prison on Jan. 2, 2014 — more than 12 years after the Nevada Parole Board said he should no longer be behind bars.

Because in Nevada, being granted parole doesn’t mean you get out.

The parole board determined in 2001 that Yeager, 52, no longer posed the same risk to society he did as a rage-filled 15-year-old runaway who killed in cold blood.

For 13 years, Yeager asked the prison system, lawyers and the Nevada Supreme Court to give him what he had been granted. But nothing seemed to help.

Then suddenly, inexplicably, Yeager was out.

So why did the government decide Yeager was fit for release but not follow through for more than a decade? And more importantly, why are dozens more people — some convicted of nonviolent crimes — caught in the same legal purgatory?

It’s a conundrum that continually pops up in the Legislature. And it comes at a high cost to Nevada taxpayers: About $4 million a year to house and feed inmates the government determined should be let out.

Yeager — whose case is an extreme example of delays an inmate can face — is part of a parole backlog that is not only expensive but also puts the public at risk, according to criminal justice experts. Many of the inmates will serve their full sentence in prison, then be dropped back into society without supervision from a parole officer.

Through public records, interviews and correspondence the Review-Journal has found:

■ Some inmates are just too poor for parole. There is a limited amount of public funding available to help inmates pay rent at the state’s few halfway houses, leaving some stuck.

■ The parole backlog largely has been pushed aside by anyone with the power to do something about it.

If Nevada leaders figured out how to get their backlog of paroled inmates out of prison, it could save millions and offer a fairer system on the surface. But one thing is clear in this mystery: With the legislative session underway, no one seems to have a plan to speed things up.

GRANTING PAROLE

Nevada’s 21 prisons, conservation camps and transitional facilities housed an average of 12,739 inmates a day last year. This year, the corrections department is authorized to spend $300 million on the system.

The Nevada Parole Board, in determining whether inmates are ready to rejoin society, takes the first step in cutting those numbers.

Prison sentences typically involve a range — say two years to five years, with the inmates eligible for release once they have served their minimum. The parole board then can deem prisoners eligible to serve the remainder of their sentence supervised by a parole officer.

The board considers the likelihood the prisoner will break the law again; the severity of the crime; the inmate’s criminal record; testimony from crime victims; the inmate’s history of violence, drug use or sexual deviance; and whether the prisoner has failed a previous probation or parole.

If the board grants parole — a privilege, not a right, according to Nevada law — the inmate must submit a plan for life on the outside to the Nevada Division of Parole and Probation.

And that’s where the system hits a snag. For one in three paroled inmates, something goes awry with the submitted plan and Parole and Probation officials won’t sign off. The inmates then wait, often for months or even years.

Those holdups result in Nevada taxpayers paying roughly $343,000 per month — or more than $4 million in an average year — to feed, house, guard and provide medical care for more than 300 people a year the state has decided don’t need to be in prison.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

According to information received by NV-CURE, People in Nevada who are on parole or probation are being advised by their P&P Officers that they may not associate in any manner with NV-CURE because members and supporters of our organization are convicted felons.

NV-CURE has communicated with P&P Chief Natalie Wood regarding this matter and is in the process of attempting to change or modify the association clause of the conditions of parole and probation. Persons on parole or probation should be permitted to associate with NV-CURE in our legitimate activities reflected in our mission statement without fear of having their parole or probation revoked.

IF YOU KNOW of anyone on parole or probation who has been advised by a P&P Officer that they may NOT associate or join NV-CURE because our organization has convicted felon members, PLEASE have that person contact attorneys Travis Barrick and / or Cal Potter with the details.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

This is the text of a letter that a member of Nevada Cure sent to the ACLU in Nevada about the high number of deaths in the custody of Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC). Their response: just fill out their form. We have been gathering so much documentation on medical neglect since the class action lawsuit that ACLU settled with NDOC!

We would like to see some more answers and pushes to real change, more transparency from ACLU and NDOC in this matter. The electorate and the taxpayers, but most of all, the people in prison have a right to know why so many people die inside of medical neglect or inadequate medical care, and what is being done to address this.

Nov. 15th, 2014:

Dear NV ACLU:

I am writing about my concern about the high number of deaths in the NV Department of Corrections. Since I moved here 15 months ago, there have been 20+ deaths reported in the media with little or no information as to the cause of death. As a matter of fact just today, I saw in the media that a 55 year old woman at FMWCC and a 28 year old man at High Desert both died!

It is well known that the NDOC does not treat hepatitis and perhaps many of these deaths are a result of painful deaths due to this disease? While I realize that HIPPA laws prohibit an individual's medical conditions to be revealed publicly, our state government is charged with the health and welfare of it's incarcerated population, no matter what.

I moved here from Illinois where the IDOC was carefully and routinely monitored by the John Howard Association in Chicago who visited each facility over the course of every two years and distributed their findings publicly and to the state legislature about the conditions and problems at each facility. They have no authority over the IDOC but their public reports definitely have an impact on needed changes that are always found as a result of the tours and interviews with the staff and the inmates.

Is anyone monitoring the NDOC, especially when it comes to the number of deaths among the inmates here? I note that most of the deceased inmates are NOT old men/women but younger or middle age and not likely to be dying of "natural causes" that are associated with old age. My husband is currently incarcerated with the NDOC and I am concerned for his welfare as well as the other American citizens who are not getting proper medical care.

How can we as citizens of this state, get this critical issue addressed in Nevada?

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*** Not all content on this website has been verified to be true. Any parties mentioned are innocent of any accusations or allegations made against them until proven guilty in a court of law. Nevada Cure is not liable for any false or erroneous information submitted for publication.

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